Connected on 2010-01-06 10:00:00
from Blue Island, IL, US
- 9:06 am
- Guestwhat is that
- Bugscope Teama wasp body right now
- Bugscope Teammashed
- Guestthanks
- 9:12 am
- 9:18 am
- 9:32 am
- Bugscope TeamWe are ready to roll. Session is unlocked.
- 9:37 am
- 9:42 am
- 9:47 am
- 9:52 am
- Bugscope Teamhello myrs. mostyn!
- Bugscope Teammrs.*
- Bugscope TeamGood Morning!
- Bugscope TeamWelcome to Bugscope!
- TeacherGood morning!
- Bugscope Teamthis is the sticky pad (the pulvillus) between a fly's claws
- Bugscope Teamthe tiny setae we see are what help the fly stick to walls -- to vertical and overhead horizontal surfaces
- Teacherneat
- Teacherso is this a fly or a wasp
Bugscope Teamthis is a fly
- 9:57 am
- Bugscope Teamwe can tell because we can see its haltere, meaning it has two wings; wasps and bees have four wings
- Bugscope Teamthe halteres beat opposite the beats of the two wings and keeps things balanced
- Bugscope Teamtake the mag lower if you would like
- Bugscope Teamthis looks like part of the tibia
- Teacherwhat are the thicker parts
- Bugscope Teamwe're looking at some of the spines
- Bugscope Teamor bristles
- Bugscope Teamthey are likely mechanosensory -- they are sensitive to touch
- Teacherthey want to see the head... how do i get there? : )
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head; I clicked on preset 4
- 10:02 am
- Teachercan you do that again... sorry
- Bugscope Teamlet us know if the presets do not work for you; you should be able to choose from among any of the presets -- the thumbnailed locations to the left of the chat box
- Bugscope Teamalso, to move around you might find it easier to use click to center than click to drive
- Bugscope Teamyou can see the compound eye to the left
- Bugscope Teamand you can see that it has scales from a moth or butterfly on its surface
- Bugscope TeamThe scales on the wings of butterflies and moths are what makes them so slippery and dusty.
- Bugscope Teamall of the little facets of the eye are called ommatidia
- Teacheris the fly missing an eye or is the fly just turned so we can't see the other eye
Bugscope Teamthe fly is turned so we can't see the other one right now
- Bugscope Teamyou can see that this fly has a long extended proboscis
- 10:08 am
- Bugscope Teamthe antennae are on the top there
- Bugscope Teamwith a kind of spongy part and a branched part
- Teacherwhat is the divet on the nose part... right in from of the eye
Bugscope TeamThere is a little indentation with two sort of finger looking things--those are the antennae
- Bugscope Teamantennae!
- Teacherwhat is this
Bugscope Teamthis is a spiracle. It's a type of breathing hole
- 10:13 am
- Bugscope Teaminsects can open and close their spiracles and thus regulate the amount of air entering or leaving the body
- Bugscope TeamInsects don't have noses, and they don't have lungs. They breathe through spiracles that are located all over their bodies. The spiracles are connected to trachea, tubes that carry oxygen to the insect's cells.
- Bugscope Teamwe are looking inside, and the parts that are glowing are charging up, a little, with electrons
- Bugscope Teamthis is the head of the fruit fly. its mouth is lower left middle
- Bugscope Teamone of its antennae is busted off, and you can see that its eye is either nicely streamlined or shrunken a bit as a result of drying
- Bugscope Teamthere are probably 2 thousand individual ommatidia in the compound eye
- 10:18 am
- Bugscope Teamif you had a compound eye you would have very good peripheral vision, and you would also be able to register motion/movement more quickly
- Teacheris this the mouth
Bugscope TeamYes, there is a little piece of flaky stuff on it.
- Bugscope Teamseeing changes in the visual field quickly gives flies and many other insects the ability to avoid us grabbing them, for example
- Bugscope Teamthis fly has sponging mouthparts
- Bugscope TeamMany flies have mouths are kind of like a sponge on a straw. They press the spongy part on their food, which soaks up liquid, then they suck the liquid out of the sponge with a tube that is connected to their stomachs.
- 10:24 am
- Bugscope Teamnow we see the cricket's compound eye
- Teacherwhat is that bump on the top of our screen
Bugscope Teamlooks to be a bit or dirt or some other type of junk that doesn't belong
- Bugscope Teamand we are now looking at part of the thorax, which is like the torso on a person
- Bugscope Teaminsects are often 'hairier' than we expect, and we often find that they are dirty, although that is not always their fault; they might have gotten dirty after they died
- 10:29 am
- Bugscope Teamyou would think that they were also covered with bacteria, but we do not see bacteria that often
- Bugscope Teamto the left you can see one of the claws, now in the low middle
- Bugscope Teamand now to the right...
- Bugscope Teamwhat we see now is the bottom of the head, and one of the palps
- Bugscope Teampalps are accessory mouthparts that help the insect manipulate and taste its food
- Bugscope TeamCool!
- Teacheris that a bug/
Bugscope TeamThis is a super close look at an insect
- 10:35 am
- Bugscope Teamif you look at the micron bar, in the lower left corner of the viewing screen, you can get an idea of the magnification, and if you click on it you can see what the mag is -- data will come up on the screen
- Bugscope Teamthe long thing there looks like a mold spore
- Bugscope Teamsort of football shaped
- Bugscope Teamthe micron bar reads 21 microns right now. the sort of inverted 'h' is a Greek letter 'mu' that means 'micro.'
- Bugscope Teamwe can tell, because this beetle does not seem to have any pads of sticky setae, that it is not able to climb smooth surfaces
- Bugscope Teamyou could compare this to preset 5
- 10:40 am
- Bugscope Teamyes! as Annie says it could still climb, but it would have to have something to grip
- Bugscope Teamthese are comparable to taste buds, on your tongue
- Teacherhow much bigger are our tastebuds than these
- Bugscope TeamI'm not sure. I don't think anyone would be able to give up their tongue here to check :)
- Bugscope Teamwe can see that these are only a few micrometers long, so you would not be able to see them well with your eyes
- Bugscope TeamYes, these sensilla are quite small. When you look at your tongue in the mirror, you can clearly see the individual sensilla--so I would say that tastebuds are several times larger than these insect taste receptors.
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the halteres on the thorax, what is left of it, of the crane fly
- 10:45 am
- Bugscope Teamthe head is to the north
- Bugscope Teamthe haltere is dried out, a bit; normally it would be plump and round like a boxer's speedbag
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the two things that beat opposite of the way the wings beat and thus balance the fly in flight
- Bugscope Teamflies have two wings, which is what 'Diptera' means: di (two) ptera (wings).
- 10:50 am
- Teacherwhere did the blood from the wasp go
Bugscope TeamInsects don't really have blood like humans do. Their blood doesn't carry oxygen, it only serves an immune function. It is clear or greenish, not red. When the insect dies, the liquid part of the blood evaporates.
- Bugscope Teamspider fangs!
- 10:55 am
- Bugscope TeamSpiders inject their prey with venom, which dissolves the prey's internal organs. The spider then sucks out the dissolved organs like a milkshake, leaving a shell behind.
- Bugscope TeamWe are looking at the exact center of the spider's back..we were.
- Bugscope TeamPollen grains
- 11:00 am
- Bugscope Teamhere are the antennae of the fly
- Bugscope Teamthis is salt from wendy's restaurant
- Bugscope Teamwe can see the cubic structure of the salt crystals; if we were to compare them to sugar, we would find that the sugar crystals are not cubic like this.
- Bugscope Teamwe like Wendy's salt because it has that cool sculpted appearance.
- 11:06 am
- Teacherthat was neat... the students got an idea of how zoomed in it goes
- Bugscope Teamyes it is difficult to have an idea of scale otherwise, when you are looking at something you don't have a good reference for.
- Bugscope TeamThe salt crystals give you a good idea of how zoomed in you are
- Bugscope Teamthis is the shaft of the antenna of the wasp, and here we see just one of the tiny bristles
- Bugscope Teamwe were at such a high mag (about 90,000x) that the sample got distorted by the electron beam
- Bugscope Teambacteria, if we were to see them, are usually 2 microns (2 micrometers) long
- 11:11 am
- Bugscope Teaminsects get lots of information about their environment from their antennae. in particular they get a lot of scent information through the chemoreceptors that line the antennae
- Bugscope Teamthis is one of the placoid sensilla
- Bugscope TeamOK, everyone, I have to run off to an exciting day of insect science. Thanks for the questions!
- Bugscope TeamGood bye!
- Teacherthank you so much! this was great!
- 11:16 am
- Bugscope TeamThank you, Mrs. Mostyn.
- TeacherHave a great day : )
- Bugscope Teamhttp://bugscope.beckman.illinois.edu/members/2009-142/
- Bugscope Teamthat is the link to your member page, Mrs M
- Teacherawesome
- Bugscope TeamSee you next time!
